3 Key Elements of Writing Great Headlines

When it comes to content creation, the importance of headlines cannot be over-emphasized. Headlines play a vital role in how well your content performs on social media sites as well as search engines. Writing great headlines is not easy but not unachievable, it takes time and patience.

Whether you are a newbie blogger or you have been around for a while, you will surely learn one or two things from this post.

Why Should You Write Great Headlines?

Headlines is the first thing that attract people to your blog posts, no matter how good your content may be, if the headline sucks, you may find it difficult to get people to read it.

I learnt this lesson the hard way, but since I learnt the significance of crafting great headlines, I have started devoting enough time to crafting my headlines. If you want more traffic and you probably want to create viral blog posts, I will advise you to learn the act of writing great headlines.

Ehsan did a post here at Blogging cage where he shared some tips on writing viral blog posts and during the comment interaction I got the inspiration to write this blog post.

In other to help you in your journey of creating great headlines which is an important aspect of writing viral blog posts,

I will be sharing with you 3 key Elements of Great Headlines.

1. Great Headlines are Short

Great Headlines are pretty short! Yes, you heard me right. I have discovered that when a headline is becoming too long, something above 80 characters, it becomes boring. I have discovered that most of the popular blog posts out there have short headlines, there headlines are usually around 50-70 characters long.

One of the most popular blog posts on CopyBlogger is “10 Steps to Becoming a Better Writer“, this blog post headline is short and straight to the point, and the post has about 300 comments.

Don’t get me wrong, am not totally against long headlines, there are some instances and exceptional cases where long headlines have and will performed well; it all boils down to whoever that is crafting the headline and how well he can write it.

That said, if you are just starting out will headline writing and you really want your headlines to work well, I will advise you to stick with short headlines between 60-80 characters.

research has shown that is takes about 10 seconds (or so) to impress or convince people on the internet, this means that it takes people just 10 seconds to make a decision and it likewise takes you 10 seconds to convince them to click that link and head over to your blog to read your contents.

So, if you have just 10 seconds to impress them, I doubt that what you need is a “headline that looks like an essay body”.

For you to impress them quickly, you need to make your headline short and concise. You need to tell them what your blog post is all about in few characters.

2. Great Headlines are Compelling

Making your headlines compelling is very very very important (I intentionally emphasized that). If your headline is short but not compelling it will have any effect on your click-through rates or conversions.

I won’t want you to joke with this aspect of headline writing, because it is the heart beat of great headline copy. A headline is compelling when it is attractive and it creates a sense of curiosity in the mind of your readers.

The best way to make your headlines attractive and compelling is to make use of compelling and attractive words in your headlines, the kind of words that will raise curiosity in the mind of your readers.

A good example of this is “10 things you don’t know about Traffic Generation”. A lot of bloggers are struggling with traffic generation and when they come across such a headline, it creates a kind of curiosity in them; they want to know the missing part of traffic generation in their life.

They are eager to find out those 10 things that they don’t know about traffic generation. Some will even start wondering if those 10 things are the things that are preventing them from getting traffic to their blog. 😀 😉

Can you see the psychological effect of a compelling headline at play? If you want to create such headline, you need to take your time to think and rethink your headlines till you get a perfect copy.

You can use words like: Unknown, sexy, effective, brilliant, new, unique, secret, truth, proven e.t.c. to help make your headlines more compelling. For more of such keywords, you can check out 100+ Words to Make Your Headlines Attractive and Tempting.

3. Great Headlines are Promising

Have you heard the phrase “What is in it for me?” this is the question that comes to the mind of potential readers as soon as he/she comes across your headline!

Top bloggers and marketers don’t joke with this third point because it is very important just like the other two that I mentioned above. People don’t just want to waste their time; they want to get value in return for the time they spend in clicking through to your blog and waiting for your blog to load up.

If you want your headlines to have higher CTR, you should start promising your readers something in exchange for their time in your headlines. For example, the initial idea I got for this blog post title was “3 Elements of Good Headlines”, I later wrote “3 Elements of Great headlines”, but I was still not satisfied so I eventually settled for “3 Key Elements of Great Headlines”.

Note the word “key” in this post headlines, that word is promising you “3 important” or “3 keys” of writing great headlines; who doesn’t want to know 3 keys for writing great headlines, I doubt such bloggers/writers exist.

Another good example is, “4 Techniques for losing weight in 7 days”, take a sneak look at that headline, it is promising to help you lose weight in just seven days and this headline can be much rewritten as “4 Techniques for losing 100 pounds in 7 days”, the concept remains the same, it is promising the reader something!

So start promising your readers something in your headlines as from now on!

Final Words:

Writing great headlines comes with practice, the more you write headlines, the better you become at it. So don’t just sit and wait for the magic wand of headlines writing, it is not going to come!

So sit up and start practicing till you become perfect with your headlines writing skills.

I love comments and other people's point of view, I will love to know if this post have been helpful to you and don’t forget to share your experience with writing headlines in the comments.

Great Headlines attract more people. They are the main thing which users see at first. It may be in SERPS or in Social site, headlines play a very important role and if the users like it only then they click and read the post. Thanks for sharing your article. 🙂

Generally Bloggers Prefer of Making Headlines Which generally Starts from either “How to” or “_Ways to Do this” which has become quite boring to read and sometimes Looks Untrustworthy. What could be the possible other Options to provide Catchy titles?

Hi Ravi,
You are right about “how to” and “ways to do” headlines being common among bloggers, but the reason such headlines are common is because they work well. “How to” is one of the highest search termed on Search engines, people are always looking for ways to do things, that is why lots of bloggers use “how to” in their posts title.
There are quite a number of options when it comes to headlines, in fact there are unlimited options. we are only limited by our imagination. you may try some of these headlines swipes below, they are from my personal library/collection 😉
“Who Else” headlines”
“Who Else Wants to Earn Money from Home?”
“Who Else Wants More Blog Traffic?”
The above headlines work well, just think think and read various articles and steal their headline formats, but don’t copy it!

I totally agree with you Joseph, if you don’t have attractive headline you’re not going to see real people coming to your blog to read your content. At times it might even take me more time to create headline than writing the content itself.
Thanks for the sharing.

You are right Adetony,
Your headline is what will bring the visitors to your blog, if you get it wrong, you may find it difficult to get people to read your blog posts. Headline crafting should not be done in a hurry, I usually take my time when doing it, sometimes, I even edit my headline after publishing the post 😉

Hi Olawale,
it is nice to see you here, indeed practice makes perfection and this is very crucial if you want to improve in terms of headline writing. I discovered this after I started practicing and devoting time to my headlines and I have seen improvements in my headline crafting skills.
These days, I don’t think much, the headlines just come handy!
Thanks for commenting.

Hi Serdar,
Keyword Research too is pretty good, especially if you can get low competition words to use in your headlines for better SEO. After doing your keyword research, just make sure you try to make your headline have these 3 key elements so that it will convert more for you.

Joseph, great one here! Have never read much from you before but your interaction with Ehsan through comment has prompted me to look at your BTT and then I see your post here. You see, I have always taken much of the time to make great headers. I takes me so much time to make it shorter (about 60 characters usually). And then we need to work a lot hard on it as it takes us just a frame of seconds to attract a reader in this so competitive business go blogging. Look forward to more from you.
Regards – Koj

Hi Koj,
just like you said, Crafting great headlines requires time but the result is worth the time invested in it. I spend a lot of time too to think and rethink about my headlines, but as I have always been saying, headline writing gets easier the more you practice it. When you practice more, you will surely write better headlines in short times.
BTW, Am glad you took a look at BTT, hope to see you there regularly. 😉

Wow! As A natural copy writing enthusiast, I was naturally drawn to this post!
You are good at what you do, you actually killed it in this post as you use to do!
Great Job Bro.
And one more thing, write your headline like you are writing a sales letter headline!

Hi Deji,
thanks for the complement. I agree with you that we should write our headline like you are writing a sales letter headline! I knew you were going to say something like that because I know you love writing sales letter 😉
Thanks for reading and commenting.

Hello! Joseph i enjoy reading this post after having my drink, I agree with what you said about writing the headline not more than 80 characters i can see alots of blogs with a very short heading but having a very good comment, Am going to use of this and see how is going to work out for me

Hi Shehu,
Short headlines really work, there are lots of blogs that use short headlines including CopyBlogger and it is working well for them.
Make sure you put these tips to practice and I hope it works well for you.
Thanks for reading and commenting.

Hi Obinna,
headlines are indeed important and YES! I have read magnetic headlines by CopyBlogger, In fact I have read that post quite a number of times 😉 and each time i still find it interesting.
Thanks for commenting.

Hi Jide,
it is nice to see you here, I like your tip too, I do that too once in a while especially on my niche sites. I try to reason like my readers and think of what words will come to their mind whenever they want to make a search on a particular topic and i try to craft my headline along that path.
thanks for adding you views and commenting. 😀

Hi young legend,
Man! We have enough bright minds in Africa 😉 Make sure you work on this and improve your headline writing skills, it will be useful for you on the long run.
Am glad you love the post. thanks for commenting.

Headline is the heart of every copy, sales, magazines, blog post, news letters, e.t.c. Once your headline can do the job to convince a visitor to open your article, then the body of the content will be read. If it fails, your whole article does not exists.
I agree with you Joseph, nice article.

Hi shamsudeen,
thanks for laying emphasis on the importance of headlines, “if your headline fails, your whole article does not exist” and am glad you agree with me on this post.
If you have more headlines writing tips, feel free to share it with us, we will love to learn from you.

Hi peter,
It is nice to see you here. Headline is indeed the most important aspect of any copy, that is why we should always strife to make it GREAT! If the headline should suck, then it will be difficult for us to get people to read our post.
We will love to learn some tips from you, if you got any, feel free to share it with us.
Thanks for reading and commenting.

This is very interesting post. Aside from you have learn about having a great headlines you can also win for giving your article and I will never miss the chance to win. Thank you for the tips Joseph and I hope I will be the winner. 🙂

Hi Joseph,
I enjoyed the post about great headlines. I spend more time on them now because I know that is the first attraction to the post. It does take practice to make headlines compelling. I always get your updates in my google alerts box. That was a good move on your part. I am already on the Internet when I get the alert and I keep that box pretty clean. I tried to set up mine. It does not work. Could you give me some tips for setting up the google alerts? It’s not recognizing my website.

Hi Jennifer,
Your headline i indeed the first attraction to your blog post and am glad to know you now spend much time on writing them. We all have to keep practicing and experimenting till we get better at it.
About my updates, I think you are talking of feedburner updates, you can set yours up at feedburner.google.com, but if you still experience any problem with setting it up, you can contact me via my blog, I will be willing to help you out for FREE.

Great post Joseph. Thank you to sharing me this knowledgeable post. And i implement all the tips to reform my working strategy. Good point Headline is very essential part for every article or post. Headline content looking catchy. Reader read headline and he create automatically impulse to read full article.
Thank you.

The headline is one important factor that will draw the attention of your readers, it is much better to have one awesome catchy head-line than bunch load of content. Thanks Joseph for this great tutorial.

You are right LegendKid,
headlines usually draw the attentions of our readers that is why we need to strive to make it better and compelling so that we can attract more readers to our blog posts.
I agree with you on having one awesome catchy head-line than bunch load of content.
Thanks for commenting.

Joseph, this is a really nice post.The truth is that the power of headlines can not be ruled out when determing whether a post will go viral or not.It is very reward when bloggers learn how to effectively use headlines to “compel’ readers to read their blogs.This post is an eyeo opener and I appreciate the fact that you took your time you carve out something like this

Hi Bolaji,
its nice to see you here, you are perfectly right bro, the power of headlines cannot be ruled out when determining whether a post will go viral or not, it is a major factor that determines how popular a post will be and that is why we should devote more time to it.
Am glad you like the post.
thanks for commenting.

Headlines as in keywords in title is definitely one of the fundamentals of on-page SEO and at the same time appeals to readers, so much word in that area cannot be over-emphasized. You’ve nailed it, Joseph!

Hi Akshay,
Am glad that you like this post, I think the headline is probably one of the reasons why the comments are pouring in.
We can always craft good headlines, we just have to give it time and think well about it.
Thanks for commenting.

Hi Amal,
I was also surprised to see the comments pouring in as soon as the post got published, anyways its a good sign that the post is quite good and informative.
BTW, I can also see someone sitting at the No. 1 spot!

Joseph,
If great headlines are short then I will have to work on that one . But you are so right about great headlines are promising. I read so many posts because they seem to offer that one simple solution. In the end there is never just one simple solution but I look for it daily. I think a lot of readers do.

Hi Devagya Uikey,
you are absolutely right, this contest is getting tougher by the day with lots of more Pro Bloggers joining and submitting their entry. Well, i like it, it givesthe comptition more fun.
Thanks for commenting.

As usual Your post is terrific…hitting it on the nail….Teaching all the points, especially and/or the ones that
help us to the out most…When You see so many comments eulogizing You, it makes You feel like our comments are going to be so redundant…We have to do it though, since You deserve it!…You’re such a great
teacher & mentor…You teach us “newbies” or even the learned stabilized bloggers affirming or reminding us of all
the tips…May The Lord million ply back to You all the sharing & teaching You give us…Gratitude & Blessings!

Hi Joseph Adediji,
Well title plays a crucial role in our blog posts.Writing an effective and attracting headings to our blog will surely help us in grabing audience Interest over us !!
Thanks
Srikanth

Hi Srikanth Sri,
am glad you agree with me on the importance of having great headlines.
Great headlines is the easiest way to grab the attention of our readers and get them to have interest in our posts.
thanks for commmenting..

Hi Globalwalyy,
am glad you like the article, Headlines play a vital role in how well our content will perform especially on social media sites. That is why it is important for everyone to keep learning how to write good headlines.
Thanks for commenting.

hi Debarshi,
am glad you found the article helpful, make sure you give the tips I shared some trial and I know it will surely help how well your blog posts perform especially on social media sites.
Writing great headlines comes with practice, you have to keep practicing till you become perfect.

Hi Prajith,
you are not the only one guilty of this, many times we tend to forget the importance of great headlines and focus too much on writing the content forgetting that a good headline is important for our contents to get read.
Am glad you found the post helpful. Thanks for commenting.

Hi Abhishek Shukla,
you are quite right, short and simple headlines that goes straight to the point works well and it makes conversion quite easier.
Am a fan of short headlines, i strife as much as possible to keep my headlines short. am glad you found the post useful.
thanks for commenting.

Awesome post Joseph. Headlines these days are just as important as the post itself, with users skimming through their large list of RSS feeds or social media links, search engine results the headline is your only chance to grab their attention.

hi Bashir Ahmed,
You are absolutely right, I often tell people that users these days skim through their large list of RSS feeds or social media links, and search engines results and the easiest way to capture their attention is to write great headlines.
Thanks for commenting.

Great headlines are the first impression you can make to a visitor and if the headline is compelling enough to bring him in then be sure you can always convince him to always return. The headline is your first tool to making an impression about a topic and being creative about it can distinguish you as a blogger and that way you are sure to succeed as one.

I am quite new to blogging well actually I am a newborn. I really enjoyed your article and learned from it which is always a bonus. Hopefully now that I am armed with information you provided, I will be able to create intriguing headlines that will entice readers and traffic to my blog. Thank you so much for the effort.

Great points you have Joseph, you rock with this headline post.I’m quite careful whenever I intend to pick headlines for my post.The more creative I go, the more traffic it brings in.Thanks for this post

Awesome article Joseph, good headlines are the main factor of atracting more readers to read the article. Always when I go through some newspapers or magazines I only look at the headlines (or pictures) if the title got my attention I will read the article if not I won’t bother with it. Of coruse headlines isn’t everything you need a great content underneath as well.

Interesting article Joseph.. I always go with the long headings but after reading your post I found it very useful and your post have a point in it so now am going to try short informative headings . Great Work!!!!

Truthfully speaking, when I found this post I wasn’t expecting anything new for me and every other blogger trying to improve himself is fed up of reading same stuff again and again. There are hundreds of bloggers talking about blogging and each one is saying the same thing so there’s no point of reading them again and again. But still, just to complete my reading task of the day I clicked on this post.
And I must say that I am really impressed by this post. All the points, though not new, were not old and boring. Probably because the way you presented these is not only impressive but helpful. Your examples are certainly going to help. Thanks..
And yep.. I agree writing good headlines need practice. When I came across the fact that one needs good headlines to catch the attention of readers.. I found it really tough to make good headlines but things have changed since then. I won’t say I am adept in this skill but yep.. I am better than I was before. Practice makes a man perfect…
Also..there’s One thing I want to share about headline writing .. When I started with writing what I used to do was think about a topic and write the headline and then write the post. Basically my post was based on the headline. However.. This is a very wrong strategy. An experienced writer/blogger would know how bad this can result into. So I think bloggers should be aware of this thing. Differentiate between topic and headline and write a headline based on the post you write not vice versa..

Its really difficult to find the great headlines or titles of the articles, and wasn’t know if it could be benefited for my blog, I’m going to try this and can you suggest the unique great headlines. anyways thank you for this articles and looking forward for more..

Headlines are an important part of content. Blogging starts and end with content; similarly content start and ends with a proper headline. No matter how much great content do you have, be it written by Darren Rowse, without a proper headline, it is a total waste.

Thanks for this striking points, it did help me to enhance my capability of writing great headlines.

Your headline is the first, and perhaps only, impression you make on a prospective reader. Without a compelling promise that turns a browser into a reader, the rest of your words may as well not even exist.

As we all know that great headlines are the first impression of articles. If the headline of any article is not impressive then it means no one is going to click on the link and who have clicked on the link they are not going to return again on that website or webpage.

I am very happy to get this awesome piece of your thought. You mentioned all the points very clearly and I learnt a lot of thing from this post related to creating impressive headlines. Point (1) and (2) attracted me a lot.

Thanks for sharing this superb article with us. I found this useful post on kingged.com and became attracted to read full post. I loved it 🙂